Your weekly outlook
The past week in the stock market saw a few more flashes of the long-awaited rotation out of mega-cap tech stocks, and into beaten-down value names. On Monday the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 bottomed out more than 10% below recent highs before saving some face later in the week. Many popular meme stocks were collateral damage.
But the Nasdaq may have an ace in the hole in the form of the $1,400 stimulus checks due to hit Americans bank accounts as soon as this weekend. A recent survey from Deutsche Bank found that half of all people between the ages of 25 and 34 plan to use the money to buy stocks.
Your weekly recap/outlook
This past week was one where the market just couldn t make up its mind. US stocks surged on Monday after suffering their worst decline in months the prior week. Then inflation fears and spiking bond yields spooked investors anew as Fed Chair Jerome Powell failed to calm nerves.
The tides turned again on Friday as anxious dip-buyers quickly pulled tech stocks back out of correction following a monster jobs report that nearly doubled forecasts. Now it s anyone s guess where the market heads next week.
The volatility is stemming at least partially from uncertainty around how signs of economic progress should be interpreted. On one hand, encouraging labor-market data should have investors excited about the prospect of increased consumer spending. But on the flip side, an economy that runs too hot risks runaway inflation the sort of thing addressed by higher interest rates. And when rates rise, stocks lose luster. It s quite the catch-22.
Your weekly recap/outlook
The CEO of Robinhood, a hedge fund manager who lost 53% in January, a day-trader who made $48 million on GameStop, and Ken Griffin walk into a bar.
No, this is not the beginning of a bad finance joke. It s the actual collection of individuals grilled by Congress on Thursday in a high-profile display of political theater the stock market has rarely experienced before.
Gabe Plotkin the famed hedge funder who took home $846 million in 2020, then took a massive bath on his GameStop short last month was asked with a straight face if he s a registered broker. He was later asked if he thought short-selling constituted market manipulation, to which he replied no (presumably because it doesn t). Nobody pronounced Vlad Tenev s last name right for five straight hours. Keith Gill (known on YouTube as Roaring Kitty) was mostly ignored. It was nobody s idea of a productive time.
Your weekly outlook
The past week saw the market zeitgeist shift somewhat away from the pesky day-trading rascals on Reddit and towards bitcoin, which repeatedly set new records. The red-hot cryptocurrency got a coveted co-sign from Tesla, which said that it bought $1.5 billion worth and would start accepting it as payment.
It then surged even more to all-time highs after further adoption from the likes of Mastercard and BNY Mellon. With bitcoin now back at record highs, some age-old questions will persist over the coming weeks: Can increasingly widespread adoption continue to offset concerns the coin s price is overextended? And who else will follow the lead of these high-profile companies?